Monday, December 31, 2012

It’s New Year’s Eve and anything can happen - let’s break 2013 in with a crazy week of projects. Are you mad as a hatter? Do you love a good tea party? Is it your un-birthday? Do you like to break all rules and just do your own thing? Use wild colors and bold design? However you choose to interpret the challenge, we’re sending 2012 out with a bang - and one Mad Tea Party.

We're having a party and you are invited! This is an 'anything goes' week - so enjoy!

While you'll see that the team created projects inspired by my intro to this challenge, this is an "anything goes" week and so I (May) took that to heart and scrapbooked some photos I'd been meaning to find time for.

I scrapbook so very often - and yet so rarely here on the challenge blog so I couldn't resist breaking out some bright colors, fun Kelly Purkey stamps, and whipping up one last layout in 2012. Since this is an anything goes challenge - I went for a funky messy look with stencil and ink and splatter. My motto this time of year is to take any small amounts of crafting time you can find - and run wild!

Pack up your suitcase and ring in the New Year with Candy at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party! This little vintage beauty is full of fun and yes; even tea!

Ring in the new year with a Mad Tea Party, raise your tea cup with Tracy and enjoy the New Year with a refreshing cup of tea.

No Mad Tea Party is ever complete without a quirky tea cup, tea always tastes better in a tea cup. I always associate blue with Alice's dress and so my cup was coloured with broken china Distress Ink and covered with book pages from an Alice in Wonderland book. My Alice In Wonderland characters are courtesy of Crafty Secrets Greetings From Wonderland Stamps, coloured with blue, neutral, red/yellow Pitt Pastel Pencil. There is nothing finer than a refreshing cup of tea!

Ashli could not pass up the opportunity to scrap these fun photos of her little one with the Rabbit for this week's challenge!

When I think of The Mad Hatter, all I can think of is an unexpected adventure. In addition to the obvious reference of the Rabbit in these photos, they were also taken at The Magic Kingdom, which is FULL of unexpected adventures! After fussy cutting those adorable little tea cups from my American Crafts Soho Garden collection, I layered them over my photos. More fussy cut floral loveliness balances out my areas of embellishment. Then, using Jillibean Soup Alpha Beans, and some shiny Sequins, I added in my title- trailing down the page into the rabbit hole. Perfect for setting the tone in this section of my Disney Scrapbook!

Sarah immediately thought of the White Rabbit being "late for an important date" and she was also thinking that despite the fact we are all living in a digital world, the good old paper and pen are sometimes just what you need.

Although we have phones, i-pads, computers, email and technical wizardry galore, I still find myself grabbing a paper and pen to jot down those important dates and numbers. Then when you need that piece of paper, it's gone AWOL. So I thought I would celebrate the joys of the hand written note and create a grungy year book to squiggle in! I used Tim's Destination Paper Stash, Walnut Stain Distress Ink, and a word band to create my dimensional cover. Now, there's no excuse being late and - Viva paper and ink!

To celebrate last year and starting a brand new one, Sandra Mouwen likes to toast with a nice cup of tea.

To celebrate the last day of a fabulous year, Anna-Karin made a pop-up card full of surprises:

What better way to end a year full of stamps, dies and inky fingers than to make a colorful Mad Hatter's tea party pop-up card, with additional surprises on the front. I used the same wonderful TJ Designs stamps as Candy did on her project. The 'shelf' of the Sizzix Party Phrase pop 'n cuts formed a fun stage for my mad tea party. The background was inked with Distress Inks and heavily misted, since a New Year's Party has to shine. The small Kaiser playing cards were almost made for this project, but where is the Queen of Hearts hiding?

Suzz has been watching the new show "Once Upon a Time" and immediately thought of the magic hat owned by the Mad Hatter which is a portal between the two worlds.

I had this vision of a hat with all the numbers dancing around along with the striking reds and blacks associated with the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter. The 7 Gypsies Numero 17920 Number BarcodeI provided a mix of numbers for my background. The Darkroom Door Fun and Games set was the inspiration for my hand of hearts on the hat band. The JK Rowling quote from the Artistic Outpost Quote and Quotables set is a lovely addition to my hat. Now I have my own portal between the worlds if I can only find the fairy dust to go with it.

What with the holidays and one thing or another I haven't had time to make anything for this week's challenge, so I thought I share some photos of an old family album I found in the attic when I was looking for the Christmas lights. There's only room here for a couple of pages and it's well before my time, so I'm not too sure who these folks are or who made the album! I'll ask my mom if she can shed any light on it. Obviously you won't have access to my family photos yourself, but if you wanted to make something similar you could probably use things like the Tattered Time paper stack and the Artistic Collages, Steampunk, Road Trip and Artful Artifacts stamp sets and a Bind-it-all machine.

I really enjoyed each and every project shared this week - and now it is your turn! Whether you're tea inspired, Wonderland calls to you, or just want to go some entirely different direction it is ALL good - because in this challenge we've gone mad - and anything goes!

As always, Simon Says Stamp is giving away a $50 gift voucher that will go to a random entry chosen by Random Generator. To qualify all you need to do is create a new project that ties in (in any way!) with our theme and post it, along with a link back to this challenge, and add a link here. This challenge will end at 11:59pm on Sunday January 6th EST.

For the full rules, read the "challenge rules" posted in the side-bar here on our blog.

Monday, December 24, 2012

The Simon Says Stamp and show would like to wish you all the best this holiday season! We hope it’s merry, bright, and filled with joy. We are taking the week off from a challenge this week [since balancing festivities with family and friends is likely to keep our hands full!] - but we are each sharing something special with you, our lovely readers this week.

Making Christmas cards is one of the most important, and fun, parts of Christmas to me. I love the idea of my cards travelling across the globe to their destinations, bringing happiness. These are some of my cards for this year, they are all different, but have the same post card design and colouring method. Wishing you a very merry Christmas!

One can never have too many Christmas ornaments! Especially the unbreakable handcrafted kind, the kind that kiddos can help make and hang on the tree. These little vellum and twine stars are perfect for last minute holiday decorating or tying onto a little gift. Wishing you and your family a blessed Holiday!

It's a rule in my house that anyone who enters the house when the Christmas tree is up has to bring an ornament with them to hang on it - I don't care if it's old or new, big or small, bought or homemade. It's only fair that I give them something in return, so I make bags of white/milk chocolate bark to give out, and a bow cut from the Retro Grunge paper stash makes a perfect finishing touch. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, surrounded by friends, loved ones, good food and good cheer!

My Tim Holtz Blueprint stamps are helping me keep last minute wrapping fun as always. It has been fantastic working here with the Simon team in 2012, and I look forward to an amazing new year sharing crafting ideas and being inspired by this wonderful community. I wish you all the best for a glittery, bright, and utterly fantastic Christmas!

I started making Christmas cards for the first time last year, and I had so much fun making them. I used my favorite Distress Ink colors once again, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Crushed Olive and Walnut Stain. I like to wish you and your family a Joyful Christmas!

I lived in Holland for many years and each Christmas we visited the famous German Christmas markets. Every year I would scour the stalls for the prettiest most unusual baubles and glass work and now 15 years later they are my prized festive decorations. Wherever you are, however you celebrate, I wish you all a wonderful holiday filled with warmth, love, light and hope.

Christmas Eve our children get to open their gift of Christmas pajamas. To help out with packing these gifts I have gotten in the habit of using gift bags This year I re-cycled paper bags using scraps form my Merry and Bright papers and a tag using the Artistic Outpost Frosty and Friends. Sending you Christmas Wishes that your holidays are happy!

Lots of stars, Utee and Bling and Metallic Distress Stains were used to make this ATC especially for you to wish you a Merry Christmas and I hope you will have lots of loving time with your family and loved ones and for the New Year lots of luck and happiness.

I love giving at Christmas and ATC's are the perfect way to send a little special piece of art to a crafting friend. This is one of three ATC's using many different techniques included the embossed background using the Snowflurries Texture Fade adding pitch black Paint Dabber to age a little. Wishing you all peace, joy and happiness at Christmas and The New Year.

For me Christmas has me thinking about family memories more then ever, and that includes our furry critters too. Authentique's 6X6 Paper Pack Lively is so pretty is was purrrfect! Wishing you and your loved ones the Happiest of Holidays!

Please feel free to visit our team member's blogs to wish them happy holidays and to see more holiday greetings from each of them as well as see more of their beautiful work. Thank you to Simon Says Stamp for a fantastic year of sponsored challenges! We will be back on the 31st with a new challenge - and ready to begin a new year!

Be sure to visit their blogs and check out their amazing entries. So inspiring! Congratulations to each of you on a challenge well done! Please email May for the Top 3 Blinkie.

I'd like to thank everyone who took part in the challenge. It is always a joy to see what you create. I'd also like to say thank you again to Simon Says Stamp for their generosity - each week we give away a $50 gift voucher to the shop that you can use to buy all kinds of fabulous stamps, inks, and paper crafting supplies. Remember - you just need to enter the challenge each week to be entered into the drawing!

The Simon Says Stamp and Show team wishes you very happy holidays - we'll be checking in this Monday morning (as usual!) with inspiration and personal greetings as well...

Monday, December 17, 2012

Whether handcrafting something special, making gift tags or wrap, ornaments, decor, or hand crafting your cards - the odds are that you’re up to something crafty, and we’d love to see it! This week our challenge is inspired by gift giving and our design team has traditions as well as project ideas to share with you.

Check out their inspiration - then join us and share your projects!

Anna-Karin made a winter woods Christmas decoration, based on her memories of driving through snowy forests on the way to her grandmother on Christmas.

In Sweden, Santa knocks on the door on the evening of Christmas Eve, which is the main family celebration day. We sisters used to sit in a window and see who could spot him first. Santa hands out the gifts one at a time, and there are often rhymes written on the gifts, so the recipient can try to guess what is inside. On the evening of the 23rd of December, the whole family would sit in separate places in the house and wrap gifts and make up rhymes. My project would work great as a gift, but I think I might keep it for myself. I covered a wooden box with Composer tissue wrap and built a snowy scene inside, using layers of Tim Holtz's tree line die cuts, Woodland trees, a dimensional deer and a star hanging in the sky. Snow was created with Enamel Accents, white flock, white paint, snowflake die cuts, dry Distress Stickles Rock Candy glitter and lots of faux-snow.

Tracy decorated two seasonal candles perfect for decorating any home at Christmas.

It's always a Christmas tradition in our family to fill every room with candlelight, and it gives such a warm cosy seasonal feel to a home. Candles at Christmas are a perfect inexpensive gift for a friend or family member, simple to decorate and long lasting. The ornate reindeer from the Reindeer Flight stamp set decorates one of the candles and the background stamp from the Seasons Silhouettes stamp set is added to the smaller candle. For added dimension I have included two wonderful decorative buttons from Cosmo Cricket. No gift is complete without a coordinating tag also showcased on my blog. When it comes to wrapping your handmade gifts, try brown paper stamped with Christmas images or simply wrapped with ribbons and twine it gives such a real Christmas cottage hand made feel to your gifts.

In our family I'm known as the one who puts a little more effort into gift wrapping than the others, which is nice, but does mean I get phone calls asking for help when there's an oddly-shaped gift to be wrapped! I have a few small gifts for various people this year so I thought I'd put them inside homemade Christmas crackers rather than wrap them conventionally. Traditionally, crackers contain a gift, a cheesy joke and a paper hat. We put our crackers on the tree until Christmas dinner, when everyone gets a cracker at their place at the table. After pulling them we share the cheesy jokes with each other and wear our hats while we eat dinner. I cut the crackers from the Dear Mr Claus collage kit and made my own hats to put inside them with the Classics #6 stamp set. The toppers used the Holiday Wishes and Santa's Wish stamp sets and lots of Rock Candy stickles.

Candy created a very useful gift that keeps on giving throughout the year; a birthday calendar album.

Since I was a little girl, some of my favorite Christmas memories are of big family dinners on Christmas Eve; with as many family members as possible gathered around the table (or tables). In the days leading up to Christmas, I would help my mother wrap Christmas presents and she would always finish them off with the most beautiful hand made bows and glitzy sprays of tinsel or corsage type pine cones and shiny balls. So many wonderful memories that I now carry on with my children and grandchildren. With an increasing family, there comes more birthdays that need to be remembered. So, I created this vintage style birthday calendar album. It is constructed from chipboard and covered in papers from Prima's beautiful Ledger #1 Paper Pad. The metallic antiqued tiles on the cover are really embossed Ranger's Metal Foil Tape Sheets that have been given a patina look with the help of a Juniper Paint Dabber. A Tim Holtz' Large Ring Binder holds monthly pages with pockets for the easy addition of birthdays.

One tradition in our family is that I always buy a new ornament for our Christmas tree. So with this challenge, I knew I would make a home-made ornament. It was so much fun, maybe this will become a new tradition! I think these would also be great hostess gifts for the holiday season. They don't have to hang on a tree, but I know that when the Christmas lights shine on this ornament it will be magical! I started by embossing the Ranger Metal Foil sheets with my Tim Holtz Regal Flourishes embossing folder. I applied a thin layer of Claudine Hellmuth Gesso, and went to town adding various Ranger Alcohol Inks and Heidi Swapp colour shine sprays. Two of my favorites are topicana teal and chartreuse green. These sprays have such a pretty shine to them.

Ashli was inspired by this week's challenge to create a little hostess gift for her dear friend.

One of my family's Christmas traditions is participating in our dear friend's cookie swap. Well, for my family the tradition is mostly that I come home with a bag full to the brim of homemade cookies. But for me, the tradition is much more than that. Joy, affectionately referred to as "Joyful," puts her heart and sole into creating a perfect evening of food, fun and friends. It wouldn't be Christmas without it! So, I wanted to create a personalized journal to give her as a hostess gift. I began this little book by stenciling and misting a piece of Sticky Back Canvas. Once that had dried, I adhered it to some Lily Bee paper. A bit of Basic Grey floral paper embellishes the cover and some Doodle Twine and Alphas finish off this little holiday journal for my wonderful and deserving friend.

Sandra Mouwen made some snowflake ornaments out of the Snowflake decorative strips, that would make lovely gifts.

I (May) believe that whether you're a scrapbooker or not - creating a gift with phoos is one of the most simple and cherished homemade things to make!

In our family I'm definitely the go-to girl for wrapping gifts. One tip that I'd share with you for saving time but having a big impact is to use something bold in your wrapping. A big fancy lace, a big paper doily with a stamp layered over it - just something that is bold without a lot of time or extra work. That is definitely the approach I took with this fun Heidi Swapp memory display stand - I love how quickly the project came together. I used some mistable butterflies and hearts, webster's pages trims and cameos, and before I knew it my little display was ready to share! Despite being an avid crafter I rarely make homemade gifts, so this was a real treat to create.

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Suzz's family exchanges gifts for nieces and nephews and gift card holders are especially helpful this time of year.

For our family get together the nieces and nephews exchange names for the gift giving. As the kids have gotten older the gifts have turned into money and gift cards. I am always looking for clever ways to wrap up the gift to give them something fun to open. This year I looked to upcycle a few items and the Artistic Outpost Frosty & Friends stamps paired with the October Afternoon Make it Merry Paper made it easy to create my gift card holder. I added a little sparkle to my card and box to finish it off. At least the wrapping for one of the gifts is done.

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Sarah was asked to make some tree decorations for her sister but they also had to be child friendly and able to withstand the odd nose-dive!

I often get asked to make something crafty around this time. It's a busy month for us all and you might be short on time, yet you still want to get into the creative festive mood. You just can't go wrong with paper decorations and who remembers making those long paper chains as a child? Well, this is the grown up take on that and you don't need to worry about any breakages or little fingers either! I used variety of blue Distress Inks, Tim's Mixed Media and Snowflakes stamps and just one festive word to create a stylish addition to any tree!

Terry loves gifts and giving them to someone is even better, so she created a Christmas Chocolate Gift.

I just love making Christmas Gifts and giving them to someone is even better, so I made a Christmas Chocolate Wrapper. I used the fabulous paperpack from Tim Holtz and played around with the Embossing Folder, Embossing powder and lots of Crackle... The Deer are just perfect for my Project. The first one that I was making did not even end up inside a wrapper because I ate it! So I am sure the recipient will have a yummy time enjoying the chocolate inside this one because they taste delicious.

I love all of the approaches and tips the team shared this week - be sure to check out their blogs for more photos, how-to, and supply lists too. Once you've done that remember that you can share a project of your own to join in our challenge! Any gift-spiration is welcome big or small, wrapping or gift itself!

Note: This week our challenge will end on Saturday December 22 at 5pm EST, and the winners will be announced later that evening.

As always, Simon Says Stamp is giving away a $50 gift voucher that will go to a random entry chosen by Random Generator. To qualify all you need to do is create a new project that ties in (in any way!) with our theme and post it, along with a link back to this challenge, and add a link here.

For the full rules, read the "challenge rules" posted in the side-bar here on our blog.

Be sure to visit their blogs and check out their amazing entries. So inspiring! Congratulations to each of you on a challenge well done! Please email May for the Top 3 Blinkie.

I'd like to thank everyone who took part in the challenge. It is always a joy to see what you create. I'd also like to say thank you again to Simon Says Stamp for their generosity - each week we give away a $50 gift voucher to the shop that you can use to buy all kinds of fabulous stamps, inks, and paper crafting supplies. Remember - you just need to enter the challenge each week to be entered into the drawing!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Instead of 12 tags of Christmas this week, Tim Holtz has treated us to a new tag every month in 2012. You can see the archives of his Christmas tags on his blog by year. This week’s challenge here at Simon Says Stamp & Show is to find inspiration in one of Tim's past tags - from any year!

Whether it is a design, technique, or other idea - and whether you incorporate your idea onto an ATC, card, tag, scrapbook page, or other item - just have some creative fun and get into the 12 tags spirit! Our team is definitely in the spirit - check out their creations.

When Sandra Mouwen looked through all Tim's christmas tags, she had so much inspiration to choose from for her own christmas tag.

Last year was my first year of doing the 12 tags of Christmas and I had the best time ever! Everyday when I woke up, I had to look at the new tag. Thought about it all day and raced home from work to make it. It was such a wonderful rush and learned so much! My inspiration for this tag is day 1 of 2009, because I'm so mesmerized by the beautiful background with the Rock Candy Crackle Paint. For my version I did it in my Christmas home decor colors, which are lime, black, gold and a little bit of silver. So I used Shabby Shutter, Peeled Paint and Crushed Olive Distress ink for the background. The Snowflakes are stamped with Archival Jet Black ink. The reindeer and holly are covered with Rock Candy Dry Glitter which is colored with Pitch Black, Lettuce and Citrus Alcohol Ink.

I watched a video online the other day on how to fold a cloth napkin to make a flatware pouch to put at each place setting on the holiday table. Now, I don't know about your family, but mine just aren't fancy enough for cloth napkins (to tell the truth a paper napkin is a stretch most of the time!), so I had this idea for a cardstock pouch to hold flatware and a paper napkin. The pouches were made from a sheet of the Seasonal Paper Stack. Tim's tag included a tree ornament decorated with a Santa face and that was my inspiration here. The Santas came from the Holiday Wishes, Mini Holidays 2 and Santa's Wish stamp sets and the ribbon strips were cut from the Cosmo Cricket Dear Mr. Claus Collage Kit.

Tim's tag for February inspired me the most as I love the dabber resist technique, used here with the background stamp from the Seasons Silhouettes stamp set along with snowcap Paint Dabber. I also love hearts so the dimensional heart was also perfect to add to my seasonal card, cut using the Mini Heart die. I always like to add my own twist on things with my two dimensional reindeer cut using the Reindeer Flight die. Another Christmas card ticked off the list!

Ashli was inspired to create a Christmas banner full of texture based upon Tim's treatment of tissue paper in his May 2012 Tag.

When I saw Tim's tag from May of this year, I was immediately inspired by his use of stitching on tissue paper. I just love the delicate texture this gives! To create my Christmas banner, I stitched lines down the tissue paper and then cut in between the stitching to create a chenille-like texture. Some Basic Grey papers die cut into circles were then stitched to form a garland. These colorful circles were attached to my little chenille pennants. A bit of Doodle Twine, Studio Calico Snowflakes, and hand written letters finish off this holiday decor piece.

So I don't think I am the only one who would say Tim Holtz is part of my everyday life. Whether it be using product he has developed and/or being inspired by his many awesome projects; he is always present. For my tag I was inspired by his June 2012 tag, and the use of the metal leafs from his Idea-ology Foliage collection. These metal leaf and flower embellishments work so well with any colour, and also pair so well with his idea-ology Adornments that I attached to the tag top with the help of the Idea-ology Wire Pins. Another inspiration of Tim's I always seem to use; is how he custom dyes his Idea-ology Crinkle Ribbon Trim to match his project. I used Tim Holtz Distress Stains in colours Barn Door and Fired Brick and they match the other elements of my card perfectly.

Tim's 12 tags of Christmas has been such a fun part of Anna-Karin's Decembers since he started with the tags, endless inspiration to be found:

I went back and spent time meandering through the beautiful tags from last year and tag twelve jumped out at me. I love the soft icy blues on Tim's tag and the fragment doll with wing inspired me to think of angels. My tag started with a layer of tissue tape and I added color with a coat of white acrylic paint and blue dye ink. My stamped angel is the La Blanche Cherub, I love her pensive expression. I added a few flourishes in the background for movement. I finished the tag off with some of the Melissa Frances tinsel and Ideology Baubles. This tag will be used on a Christmas package of a dear friend.

A while back I was playing around with ideas of how to use up all those tags we create and came up with a tag bag! Just take two folded tags, a little Kraft Glassine Paper and lots of Christmas embellishments! When I was sifting through my papers, I suddenly thought that Tim's Retro Paper Stash was actually quite festive in colour and I thought it would be the perfect background design with just a little festive stamping using Tim's Joyful Song Set. I love the effect of Alcohol Inks on Kraft Glassine and who knew a Hitch Fastener would make such a handy catch? Ideal for any time of the year but definitely great for Christmas when you want to wrap up that

I always love using my snowman die, and when combined with my favorite winter stamp, some stickers, distress stickles, and other assorted goodies I crafted myself a tag ready to top a holiday package! I loved how easy this foil technique was, and the metallic glimmer that shows through the paint and glitter that I applied to the background. The snowman just pops so great thanks to this technique, and I will definitely be pulling this simple idea out for future projects as well. I had such fun time with this technique, and I have a feeling I'll be revisiting the 12 tags archives for more inspiration in the future too!

I encourage you to check out each of the design team member's blogs for more photos, supply lists, and more. Simply click on their name (above the photo of their project) to visit their blog.

Now that we've shared the team creations - we're ready to see yours! As always, Simon Says Stamp is giving away a $50 gift voucher that will go to a random entry chosen by Random Generator. The challenge will close at 11:59pm Eastern time on Sunday, December 16th and and the winner will be announced during the following week. To qualify all you need to do is create a new project that ties in (in any way!) with our theme and post it, along with a link back to this challenge, and add a link here.

For the full rules, read the "challenge rules" posted in the side-bar here on our blog.